I hear you ladies about due dates. My dating ultrasound way back when, changed my due date by a few days, but they still use the date based on my LMP. My shortest cycle ever was 35 days, so in my mind my due date is at least week after what they told me. Of course that means I'll probably go early :)

let's see more updates from me:-One of my coworkers delivered a few days ago. Nearly 4 weeks before her due date. It completely freaked me out. I should have 2 months to go, but now I'm like "it could be just one month" eek! Another coworker is due next week. (There is a baby boom at my school this year) things are getting really real all of a sudden. I also can't believe my belly will be able to keep growing for 8 more weeks. I feel gigantic. My baby is big enough to to move in like 4 different places at the same time. How pathetic am I that watching my belly move is one of my biggest sources of entertainment right now. I love it.

-My hypnobirthing classes are complete. I am prepping a relaxation playlist to intersperse between the hypnobirthing "rainbow relaxation" track so I can start practicing relaxing with more music. I've only stayed awake for the whole rainbow track two or three times in the last month, hopefully my instructor is correct in saying my brain is still getting the message.

-I had my hospital tour the other day. Only 3 rooms have tubs which I'm a bit sad about. I live for hot tubs and bubble baths so hopefully I'll get one of those rooms on the big day, or perhaps I'll labor long enough at home to not need it anyways. No water births allowed-yet, they are writing a protocol because of so many requests so maybe by baby #2. Every room has its own fridge where they encourage you to bring whatever liquids you want for during labor-no IV required. They also call after the delivery "Happy Hour." Their standard procedure is to give the new family an hour to have skin to skin contact, try nursing etc before all the other stuff. After two hours or so they move you from the LDR room to the "mom and baby" room. The baby will room in unless I request otherwise. It seems the only time they take baby to the nursery is for the first bath, circumcision, & hearing test. I plan to request my husband to go with the baby whenever it leaves my sight though. I have my "birth plan" appointment with my midwife (standard for this practice) in another week so I can ask about that stuff then. I can't believe I'm going to have a newborn in two months-ish.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

chiveggie are you in MA?your school sounds EXACTLY like my best friends. there is a bunch of pregnant women this year (she is due 3/22) and she texted me last (?) week and was freaking out because someone who was due 9 days before her had had the baby.

we have 1 more hypno class next Monday and then we are done too. our instructor says the same thing, ie that your brain still hears the recording when you fall asleep. i dont have that problem though. LOL. i have been the "problem child" in class. i DONT RELAX. i only listened to the Rainbow 2-3 times because it doesnt do anything for me. i listen like at attention to the whole thing and constantly ask questions about why she uses certain language. and i wait for each next color. i am a Rainbow flunky. i do however like the relaxation recording that is on the cd that is in the back of the book. the one with teh "peace sanctuary" im all about the "peace sanctuary" i made a playlist on my ipod of that and then the affirmations and i listen to it with my headphones (otherwise dog noises totally distract me) and i do deep yoga breathing while listening. im usually awake through the whole relaxation thing and fall asleep sometime during the affirmations. im quite proud of that cause it's kind of a big deal for me to calm down that much.

your hospital/midwives/etc sound awesome. i love the idea of Happy Hour!i am 30 weeks today and have a check up appt in a couple hours. i printed out my birth plan to go over it with my dr today. it's a bit early but she is pregnant and going out sometime next month so i dont want to miss going over it with her. not sure what happens to me when she goes on maternity leave. i have a feeling i will be rotated through random drs which doesnt make me feel happy :-|

i think i had my first case of baby hiccups yesterday but im not sure. late in the work day the baby was moving at a very very regular pattern so im assuming it was hiccups. not sure though.

cwe have 1 more hypno class next Monday and then we are done too. our instructor says the same thing, ie that your brain still hears the recording when you fall asleep. i dont have that problem though. LOL. i have been the "problem child" in class. i DONT RELAX. i only listened to the Rainbow 2-3 times because it doesnt do anything for me. i listen like at attention to the whole thing and constantly ask questions about why she uses certain language. and i wait for each next color. i am a Rainbow flunky. i do however like the relaxation recording that is on the cd that is in the back of the book. the one with teh "peace sanctuary" im all about the "peace sanctuary" i made a playlist on my ipod of that and then the affirmations and i listen to it with my headphones (otherwise dog noises totally distract me) and i do deep yoga breathing while listening. im usually awake through the whole relaxation thing and fall asleep sometime during the affirmations. im quite proud of that cause it's kind of a big deal for me to calm down that much.

Ahhh, that makes all the guided relaxation sections on most of my prenatal exercise DVDs make more sense. I'm a little jealous that you can't relax because lately I am so tired, I have started falling asleep putting the kids to sleep again (and they go to bed at 7)! I begged my husband to get me up, but then I totally snooze-bar him and tell him to come back later. Eventually, I manage to crawl out of their bed for maybe an hour before going back to sleep again. If I'm not pregnant, I only need 7-8ish hours of sleep. 10-11 hours seems like so much of a waste -- when am I supposed to knit and clean?! ;D

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

my inability to relax isnt for lack of being tired! ;-)i think i can finally fall asleep in under an hour+ because im so tired!

i actually need to talk about that to the Dr again today.they told me im mildly anemic so i started eating lots of lentils and stuff and i started taking my iron pill again. i would take it with OJ every day cause vit C helps iron absorption. then about a week and a half into this process (still exhausted) i realized that my OJ is fortified with calcium which HINDERS iron absorption. oy vey. im not sure what affect that has if one thing helps and the other hinders, did i get any iron? who knows.im still tired dang it!

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

Appt today went pretty good. My blood pressure was high when I got there. It was like 140/80 so they made me lie on my side for 10 mins. I was half way between “yes naptime!” and “OMG HIGH BP!!!” but when they came back and redid it, it went down to 112. Ive never had bp issues so I don’t know how high 140 is considered. The dr said since it came back down she wasn’t worried but they will keep an eye on it as if it goes really high obviously it’s a problem. I cant remember exactly why high BP is bad or what happens but I remember reading it’s bad. I know it has something to do with preeclympsia (sp?) but I also don’t remember exactly what that is.

I gave her a rough draft of my birth plan and she really liked everything on it except me declining the eye goo. I personally don’t have a huge opinion on the eye goo but my husband seems against it. my main reasoning for declining it was because I would prefer to have the skin to skin bonding time in that first hour rather than have them take the baby away to do all that crepe but she said they can do the eye goo, vit K shot, and vitals while the baby is on me sooooo I dunno I need to talk to my husband again. Normally I absolutely love my dr and she is so supportive of all our decisions but I really felt she was getting a tad fatalistic with me on the eye goo issue. she was like “well if you want to risk blindess and brain hemorrhage it’s up to you” (the brain hemorrhage I assume was in reference to the vit K shot which I did not want to decline I just wanted to delay it). I was like ‘oooookkkkkaaaaayyyyyyy!!”

Otherwise she was totally supportive of everything on the birth plan and said it was great and gave me a few tips on how to reword a couple things to be more effective and said that for people wanting a natural birth they pretty much just leave them alone and you don’t see much of them (yay!).

Unfortunately today was my last visit with my own dr because she is due in 3 weeks and is either gone or booked the week of my next appt in 2 weeks. I asked her if there was a particular other dr in the practice who was really pro natural birth and she claims they all are and they support whatever decisions people make but really love natural birth and she was like “to be honest it makes our job WAY easier because we don’t have to do anything” hahahahaa gotta love that honesty!

That's interesting that they are pushing the eye-goo so hard. They don't do it here at all, as far as I know (maybe they do if you test positive for STDs or something). I was going to decline vitamin K or ask for the oral version, but when I had Beetroot, the midwife said the oral version wasn't as effective and she was SO nice (I pushed for over 2.5 hours and the hospital policy was to use the vacuum after 2 hours and she fudged my notes (specifically the time I started pushing) so I could have an intervention-free birth), I just agreed to the jab and Beety didn't even seem to notice. After that, I just decided all my kids would get the vitamin K jab because it didn't seem like a big deal.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

You’re the 2nd person to say they don’t even do the eye goo in your country. I think OnceWeWereWesties said they don’t do it where she lives (NZ? AUS?). my understanding of it is that its ONLY for chlamidia (sorry bad spelling) or gonorrhea and they test you for those anyways. if any other sort of eye infection develops they would just treat it the same way at that point anyways so there is no real point in preemptively treating. I don’t have a strong opinion either way so I need to discuss with my husband.

As far as the shot goes my child birth instructor said we do not have the oral vit K anywhere on the east coast and it’s only available in like California or the west coast or something. again I don’t really have a huge opinion on it. im a “better safe than sorry person” but my MIL is like anti any sort of medical stuff for babies including vaccines and all these things like eye goo and vit K shot (although she is a nurse by profession!) so I think sometimes my husband’s opinion is colored by that.

I think for OBs and hospitals these things become a huge liability issue cause the US is so litigious. If someone doesn’t get the eye goo at birth then goes blind then someone sues the hospital. Unfortunately that’s how it works over here. it may actually be MA state law that we need either one or both but my husband thinks we can still sign a form to decline whatever we want to decline.

yup that was me, I'm pretty sure vitamin K is the only thing offered at birth.We had a choice of oral or injection for vitamin K, but like Crabby I was told the oral can be less effective, and sometimes the baby won't swallow it so you'll need to do it again which is actually more stressful for the baby, and also there are two doses so we would have needed to book in a second appointment somewhere [I assume just at my doctor's, I didn't actually find out]. We just went with the injection and she really didn't seem to notice it, didn't make a single noise [unlike the unholy shrieking at her six week injections!]

I couldn't stand the rainbow relaxation - I think it was a combination of that plinky music driving me up the wall and I really didn't like Marie Mongan's accent! I practiced all the breathing and visualisation techniques from hypnobirthing and really felt it was good for me, but I just used my own music that I liked. Westiebaby was born to Pink Floyd 'Animals' : )

chiveggie, are you allowed to request a room with a pool when you check in at the hospital? I hope you get one!

chiveggie, can I ask what hospital this is that you're birthing in? I'd love to hear about your experience there for my Windy City friends (and my sisters who are both hoping for babies in the near future).

Re the eye drops...it just ridiculous imo that it such a common practice still. If you're in doubt about your STD status, get tested. Geez, right? Like TCC, we weren't asked to do the eye drops, just a Vit K shot. We'd planned to do the oral version because there are some (small) associations with the injection and a higher risk of some form of cancer (I think it was leukemia, but it's been a long time now). We ended up with the jab though, as Freya was really beat up during the birthing process and it just seemed like the best thing to do at the time. I'm still a bit unsure about our decision, as K and I were both pretty shell-shocked at the point which they were asking us about the shot, but it's like a lot of things in parenting...you do your best.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

ok im up to 3 countries that dont even do eye goo automatically.to the best of my understanding they test your for these STDs before you deliver anyways and i KNOW i dont have them so i think im gonna stick to my guns.my husband is really against the goo so i have to respect that.

im sure we will have to sign stuff at the hospital to decline it. geesh.

I'm also a relatively new vegan, I was vegan for many years when in my early twenties but lapsed to a vegetarian (got lazy) when I had my first child and stayed that way until the start of this year (when i didnt even know I was pregnant!). This is my second child and I'm staying vegan this time around and so far all is going well. Iron and B12 are all good. Having a scan at 12 weeks. Due mid September!

I'm such a procrastinator. Babies both still breech, so scheduled c-section it will be next Tuesday(!!), which will be 38.5 weeks. I still haven't packed my hospital bag nor washed the co-sleeper sheets and swaddling blankets. I was definitely risking not being prepared since most twins are born well before this. I'm really happy that I've made it to 38 weeks though!

chiveggie, can I ask what hospital this is that you're birthing in? I'd love to hear about your experience there for my Windy City friends (and my sisters who are both hoping for babies in the near future)..

I'm delivering at Hinsdale Hospital out in the suburbs. I'll definitely share after the baby comes to see if they put into practice all the things they said they would. I think a lot of it depends on your specific midwife/OB. If you have friends on the southside, "Little Company of Mary" hospital was awarded a "Baby Friendly Certification" which is supposed to guarantee the hospital's standard protocol is more in line with natural birth. And the suburb Berwyn is supposed to be getting Illinois' first birth center in the next year.

oncewerewesties wrote:

chiveggie, are you allowed to request a room with a pool when you check in at the hospital? I hope you get one!

Yup, it's first come, first serve, so I will definitely ask when I get there.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

I need someone to explain the logic to me in the sizing of maternity clothes. At least in the US. I FINALLY went maternity clothes shopping this weekend. Im 30 weeks and just went now. My regular clothes still actually fit it’s just I needed some longer shirts and the buttons on my pants were stabbing into my gut when I sit. So to me I thought I was pretty small (for a pregnant lady, I was already overweight when I got pregnant). I definitely have a belly and it definitely looks pregnant now as opposed to bloated or chubby but it’s pretty small I thought. With that in mind I grabbed medium shirts and large sized pants to try on. Umm yeah no. the medium shirts definitely didn’t fit. The large pants fit but were a bit tight in the booty and I could tell that there was no more room to grow so I would be better with x-large.So if im wearing x-large what on earth do people wear when they are ginormous?!?!?!?My husband decided people must stop wearing pants and just wear dresses.The only other thing I can think of is maybe your butt and legs don’t get bigger but your belly can expand into the stretchy part so the x large actually can be worn for a long time.Im so glad they discovered a way to make maternity clothes shopping just as horrifyingly awful as regular women’s clothing shopping.

That being said why on earth did I fight maternity clothes so long?!?!? DAMN THESE ARE COMFY!I could totally nap in these. Not that that is an option right now but I could……..